Being a college town, Chico probably has a higher collective IQ than most rural, agriculture towns. We should be able to get this. We should be able to talk to each other, rather than at, or about each other. We should be able to refrain from sarcasm and name-calling in the interest of moving forward. We should be able to acknowledge the veracity of each others’ concerns, and work on ways to solve them.
But we don’t.
Just like one is pretty stupid to get in between a mamma bear and her cub, human parents will also fight like a mamma bear if they perceive their child is in the slightest danger. If there is .01% that any child in Chico will accidentally fall and find a needle piercing their skin, the parents of this town will not back down.
Telling them that the chances of their child contracting a deadly disease is very low will fall on deaf ears.
We cannot wait until there is a statistically significant number of children with a death sentence to fix this problem.
So, we have two sides that won’t back down. In other words, we won’t be moving forward. Stop it, Chico. You can’t have it all. Validate the parents’ concerns. Figure out some compromises before the town looks like San Francisco.
— Patricia Wang, Chico
